Page 1 of Forgotten Path

I

“The only clear thing is that we humans are the only species with the power to destroy the earth as we know it. … Yet if we have the capacity to destroy the earth, so, too, do we have the capacity to protect it.”

The Dalai Lama,Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium

“[M]an is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”

Rachel Carson (1964)

CHAPTERONE

Gulf Paper Industries Headquarters

Oyster Point, Florida

late August

Brianna Allen scanned the dense language of the thick, single-spaced memo, looking for words to jump out at her. Words like “harmful,” “deadly,” and “poison.” But the technical mumbo-jumbo avoided such dire and frightening language, no doubt for good reason.

Frustrated and impatient, she dropped the document to her desk and jabbed the intercom button on her desk phone.

“Yes, Brianna?”

Ordinarily, Brianna found her assistant’s smooth, velvety voice soothing, but she was past being soothed.

“Tell Pete Bickman to get his butt in here. Now,” she snapped.

“Right away,” Leah cooed.

“And Carlos Reyes, too,” she added as an afterthought.

When the scientists presented themselves, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of her wide glass-topped desk, they wore matching long-suffering expressions.

“You two look like a pair of hostages. Or like your pet just died,” she told them.

Bickman, the senior of the two, mustered up a sickly smile. “Sorry, Ms. Allen. We assumed you wanted to see us about the marine environmental report. It’s bad, as you no doubt know.”

She picked up the report, waved it at them, and then slapped it back onto the desk. “No, gentlemen, Idon’tknow. I spent the entire morning trying to wrap my mind around the report, but this … thing … isn’t in English. What does it say?”

The men exchanged a look. Reyes stuck a finger inside his collar and pulled it away from his neck. Bickman fiddled with the arm of his glasses and chewed on his lower lip.

“I’m waiting.” She didn’t have the patience for body language theater.

“I’m thinking,” he hurriedly assured her. “It’s a complicated report—it can’t be summarized easily.”

“Try.”

He bobbed his head. “So, the silt isn’t the biggest problem. It’s the other things that get mixed in and go along for the ride. Chemicals such as phosphorus and nitrogen—”

“—Are we polluting the water? Killing marine life? Yes or no?”

“Well,” he hemmed, “it’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is,” she insisted. “Yes or no?”

“Uh … no, not exactly.”

Her voice was solid ice when she said, “Gulf Paper prides itself on notexactlydestroying the environment. That’s your answer?That’swhat I should tell the Department of Environmental Protection?”